NORTHAMPTON – As the court dates for the alleged tormentors of Phoebe Prince draw closer, there appears to be little public sympathy for the six teenage defendants. However, some local lawyers say the statutory rape charges against the two male defendants are unusual.

Sean Mulveyhill, 18, and Austin Renaud, 19, are charged with having sex with Prince prior to her suicide on Jan. 14. According to both indictments, the sex took place between Sept. 1, 2009, and Jan. 14, 2010, while Prince was 15, a year younger than the legal age of consent in Massachusetts. Mulveyhill was 17 during that period. Renaud turned 18 on Oct. 11, 2009.

The torment Prince suffered in school came to light after her younger sister found her hanging by her scarf in the family home. Newly arrived from Ireland, Prince reportedly incurred the enmity of two cliques at South Hadley High School because of her romances with Mulveyhill and Renaud. Former South Hadley High School students Ashley Longe, Kayla Narey, Sharon Velazquez and Flannery Mullins have also been criminally charged in connection with Prince’s treatment over the last few months of her life. Those charges include civil rights violations resulting in bodily injury, criminal harassment, disturbing a school assembly and stalking.

According to various accounts, Narey and Mullins, who had dating relationships with Mulveyhill and Renaud respectively, turned their wrath on Prince, accompanied by the other female defendants. Prince was harassed, called an “Irish slut,” castigated on Facebook and generally bullied, investigators say.

Phoebe Prince

In a March press conference called to announce the charges, Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel said the defendants made school intolerable for Prince and that “their conduct far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels.” Mulveyhill, Renaud and Narey were indicted as adults. Longe, Velazquez and Mullins were charged in juvenile court but are being handled as adults. Mulveyhill, Renaud and Narey are scheduled to appear in Hampshire Superior Court for pretrial conferences on Wednesday.

The media has detailed every bit of evidence against the defendants that has come to light, and readers have spared no words regarding their desire to see justice for Prince. Still, the rape charges against Renaud and Mulveyhill are unusual for teenagers so close in age to the alleged victim, some lawyers insist.

The indictments of Mulveyhill and Renaud list the offense as “rape and abuse of a child,” although they cite the section that outlines statutory rape. Other defendants charged in Hampshire Superior Court under the same chapter and section have “statutory rape” written on their indictments.

By definition, statutory rape is consensual sex involving a minor. When such a case is prosecuted, there is usually an appreciable age difference between the defendant and the victim. David Angier, who served as first assistant district attorney under Scheibel and worked as a prosecutor for 24 years in that office, said he cannot recall a statutory rape prosecution involving teenagers so close in age that didn’t include extenuating circumstances.

“You look at the percentage of students who have sex in high school, and it happens all the time,” Angier said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 46 percent of high school students in 2009 reported having sex. Citing those statistics, an article in the law review Westlaw estimates that more than 7.5 million statutory rapes occur each year in the U.S.

William C. Newman, the director of the western regional office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said his research shows that most surrounding states demand a specific age differential for a statutory rape charge. In Maine, the defendant must be at least five years older than the victim. The differential in New York is four years. In Connecticut, the defendant must be more than three years older than the victim.

Because there is no age differential written into Massachusetts laws, statutory rape falls to the discretion of prosecutors. Angier said the decision to proceed on a statutory rape charge is among the most difficult prosecutors face. Often, the victim is brought forth by irate parents who demand justice, he said. Determining factors often include whether alcohol or coercion are involved.

“You have to take it on a case-by-case basis,” Angier said.

Until the evidence is presented, there is no way to know on what basis the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office decided to bring the charges. Prosecutor Elizabeth Dunphy Farris declined to comment, as did lawyers for Mulveyhill and Renaud.

John A. Pucci, a former federal prosecutor who now has a private practice in Northampton, called the statutory rape charges “highly unusual.”

“You usually see this where there’s a wide differential in age,” he said. “The idea of 15-to-17-year-olds being prosecuted is not routine.”

Where there is a greater age differential, Pucci said, prosecutors can argue that the defendant had more power in the relationship or exploited the victim’s naiveté. Any use of force normally results in a flat rape charge, he added.

Newman came upon his information about statutory rape while researching a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling on a case involving prosecutorial discretion. In that case, a 14-year-old boy was charged with statutory rape for having consensual sex with two 12-year-old girls and an 11-year-old girl. The boy’s lawyer argued that the girls should have been charged as well and that the boy was singled out because of his gender.

According to the history outlined by the Supreme Judicial Court, statutory rape was first codified in English law in 1275. That law set the age of consent at 12 and was not intended to protect the victims but the property interests of their fathers, who would lose value in their daughters’ dowries if they were not virgins.

By the 16th century, the age of consent was lowered to 10 to protect male perpetrators. Massachusetts absorbed the English law in the 1600s. In the late 19th century, the age of consent was raised to 13, then 14, then 16 in response to the widespread exploitation of young girls in factories and urban centers. The law did not cover boys until 1974.

Statutory rape is a felony that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Upon conviction, the perpetrator must register as a sex offender, a designation he will carry for the rest of his life.

“That’s an enormous burden to bear for some kid who had sex with his girlfriend,” Pucci said.

Newman, who has never seen a statutory rape charge involving consenting high school students, said district attorneys should clearly state what their policies are for prosecuting such cases, given the discretion granted them in Massachusetts. He does not know what the policy is in the Northwestern office.